'Broken Britain'

“Broken Britain”, it’s a good sound bite isn’t it? The alliteration works well and it seems to roll sweetly off the tongues of our leaders and our mainstream media, doesn’t it? Well, Britain is broken, but not in the way that Mr Cameron et al would have us believe. Britain is broken because Social Mobility is at an all-time low; the most recently released statistics make clear that, it is now virtually impossible for people to change their standing in life either upwards or downwards. On top of this lack of opportunity, which I think we would all agree is the fundamental basis for a successful, democratic meritocracy, we have returned to the days of having a ruling elite of politicians drawn from an extremely narrow, privileged and exclusive pool. These guys were born with silver spoons shoved so far down their throats, one can see them glinting in the sun when they bend over. As a consequence, the British public have virtually no choice whatsoever when it comes to electing a government, as the differences between parties and leaders are virtually non- existent, despite what the media may indicate. There are, within this CONDEM COALITION (I know it’s missing an N)  18 millionaires in the Cabinet, 18! Osborne says that “we’re all in this together” I say “PULL THE OTHER ONE GEORGE, IT’S GOT BELLS ON!”

Mr Osborne says that he will still cut police budgets, that the riots stem from deep cultural problems in Britain and that simply throwing money at police will not solve the problems. Ok, fine, but isn’t the government also cutting child benefit, childcare services, community outreach programmes, council leisure facilities (including children’s play areas), unemployment benefit, bus services, housing benefit, the education maintenance allowance for 16-18 yr olds, in fact EVERYFUCKINGTHING AND ANYFUCKINGTHING that may just help the underprivileged in our society get somewhere in life! Whilst making third level education all but impossible for those from poor backgrounds by lifting the cap on tuition fees. If you ask me, this government is abdicating its basic responsibility in a democratic society, that of providing for and taking care of the most impoverished and vulnerable members of Britain’s community and, at the same time, protecting fat cats who deserve it the least. It is essentially CUTTING THE ROPE AT THE TOP!

 I do not condone the rioting. Some of the scenes that were witnessed, for example the robbery of the Malaysian student that was caught on camera, were horrendous, and I know that certain elements do enjoy a spot of recreational rioting. However I am not so ludicrous as to blame  all the trouble on family breakdown and opportunistic thuggery. To do so would be to ignore the facts. People in these areas are unhappy, they feel disenfranchised, they feel that the police do not protect them but in fact bully and harass them, they have no jobs-1 in 4 18-25 yr olds have been unemployed for more than 12 months and these statistics are obviously much worse in the poorest areas-, and they see their chances in life as increasingly limited. Britain is divided, not by race or by class as it once was, but by cold hard cash! Since the 1980s the gap between rich and poor has grown exponentially, the difference in salaries for those at the top compared to those on the middle or ground floors has mushroomed to  obscene levels and successive governments both Tory and Labour have encouraged and perpetuated this terrible imbalance. The adage is age old; while some get fat others starve. Having played a significant role in creating this inequality and resentment I find it a bit rich (if you’ll excuse the pun) for the government to start blaming the parents with the old broken home bullshit. Haven’t we heard that before? Yes I believe we have, remember John Major and “Back to Basics”? I believe the Tories were blaming single mothers for all societies’ ills way back in 1992, funny enough, that was in the midst of a recession too. 

 I happened to catch Newsnight during the week and was fortunate enough to be party to the expert punditry of Celvin Mckenzie, the former editor of that Murdoch owned Shite-Rag, The Sun. This is definitely one of the most grotesque excuses for a human being I have ever seen, a GIANT RAT IN A SAVILLE ROW SUIT, CYNICISM PERSONIFIED! As I listened to him sneering, his blanket labelling of the protesters as “vile people” I had to scream at the television, “IT IS YOU THAT IS VILE, YOU THAT STANDS FOR ALL THAT I HATE”, and I thought to myself if we put people like him in charge of Newspapers or present him as a pundit to be listened to on the news, one doesn’t need to be a genius to see how we’ve gone wrong as a nation. However he wasn’t alone in writing off totally all who were involved in the trouble, our esteemed leader D.C. labelled those involved as “sick”. This inability and unwillingness to see the problem holistically and to take the rioting within context is criminal, it’s disgusting to see our pampered toff politicians pontificate about societal sickness from their Jags and mansions, you try living on £60 a week you FUCKWITS.

The facts are that Britain is facing some of the toughest “AUSTERITY MEASURES” in the world, and in reality, those cuts haven’t even come close to inflicting the kind of hardship that they inevitably will over the course of the next 2 years. Why do we need these cuts? This is because the Banks fucked up the International Markets by behaving fraudulently; lending money to people that they knew couldn’t pay it back and covering up losses. What happened to the bankers? They are continuing to earn 7 figure bonuses and massive salaries. What happens to the rest of us? We face cuts in healthcare, education, policing, all public services, jobs, benefits and anything else that one can think of, coupled with soaring prices of essentials such as food, fuel and energy. Meanwhile, there is virtually nothing the government can do to steady the economic ship. Why? This is a good one, because our ever wise politicos have handed total control of our lives to these “so called” self-regulating financial markets, which 99% of the population have no understanding of or connection with and which nobody can truly predict or control. Fan Fucking Tastic! Well done! On top of that, these things are more volatile than Krakatoa on a bad day, all it takes is a game of Chinese whispers to create total meltdown. Good! Seems like a sound foundation on which to structure an entire country!

Back to the trouble of last week and more particularly the police response to it. Lots of babble in the media about the police being too soft in the early stages, maybe, but they’re making up for it now alright aren’t they. The government is cracking down hard in order to show us that it isn't losing its grip on the country. Over 2000 arrests and counting, courts sitting all night, many offenders receiving custodial sentences, those “reassuring” pictures of 10 armed police smashing down a door in a council estate all to pull out one rather bemused looking suspect. Only thing is, I didn’t find those pictures reassuring at all. No, it put me in mind of Nazi Stormtroopers dragging away political opponents during the 1930s, nothing reassuring about that at all is there! Speaking of Nazis, if protests and riots increase, and I predict they will, and the number of arrests and convictions continue to rise, where will they put the prisoners, God knows our prisons are massively overcrowded as it is. How long will it be before we begin to see temporary prison camps spring up around the country to deal with the “offenders”, you may be more familiar with these camps by another name, CONCENTRATION CAMPS. Who knows, by the time the Olympics arrive in August 2012 D.C. and co might be locking up dissidents under the stadium like Hitler did in Berlin in 1936; I mean he’s already looking at ways to shut down social networking sites so protestors will find it harder to come together, tactics employed by the wonderfully open democratic regimes of Syria, Libya, Egypt and China. Good thinking David, WAY TO SHOW OFF YOUR DEMOCRATIC CREDENTIALS!

These riots were a pre-cursor; a sign of things to come, it’s right there in recent history, people can only take so much. When the level of suffering inflicted both socially and economically gets too much, and the pressure is allowed to build and build, inevitably there is a release, and if the government refuses to heed the warning and continues to bury its head in the sand then things will get much worse before they get any better. We have not seen this level of widespread social unrest and disorder really since the early 1980s when one Mrs Thatcher set about destroying vast numbers of British lives and it is no coincidence that D.C., a Thatcher devotee, is setting about doing the same thing now. As things deteriorate, which they will for most of us, make no mistake, the number of strikes and protests will increase, and if people are not respected or heard these protests will turn violent. However by that stage, it may not be quite so easy for the likes of Cameron or Mckenzie to write people off as “vile”  or “sick” because it won’t just be the fringes of society that are out on the streets but broad sections of our community voicing our anger and disgust, and then Cameron will scrambling for another Falklands.  Britain is broken, but we have it in our hands to fix it. In order for protest to achieve its goal, it must be sustained, it must be prolonged, it must involve large numbers of people from different socio economic backgrounds, it must be as peaceful as possible so that it doesn’t become easy to dismiss and the protestors must be willing to make sacrifices and be prepared to face sanctions for their actions ie. arrest. Our leaders are learning from Egypt’s Dictator, we should learn from the Egyptian people.

 

STAND UP NOW OR HAVE YOUR FACE STAMPED ON FOR ETERNITY!